Healthcare Quality Flashcards
What is Quality defined as?
“The degree to which health services for individuals and populations increase the likelihood of desired health outcomes and are consistent with current professional knowledge”
High-quality care involves providing patients with appropriate services in which areas?
- in a technically competent manner
- good communication
- Shared decision making
- Culture sensitivity
What is Quality Improvement defined as?
“Systematic and continuous actions that lead to measurable improvements in healthcare services and the health status of targeted patient groups”
What are the goals of quality management?
- evaluation of medical and nursing processes for quality and effectiveness compared to accepted standards
- Aims to provide cost-effective care by preventing overuse, misuse, and underuse of medical resources
What are the six aims for improvement?
Make sure care is:
- safe
- effective
- patient-centered
- timely
- efficient
- equitable
What three organizations focus on government agencies, physicians groups, professional nursing organizations having indicators of high-quality care and measures to document the quality of care?
- national database of nursing quality indicators
- patient safety and quality: An Evidence-Based Handbook for Nurses
- The Joint Commission’s National Patient Safety Goals
How does the Affordable Care Act contribute to a better quality of care?
- enacted to make healthcare affordable for all Americans
- Changes began to be implemented in 2010
- May change significantly in coming years
What are the broad aims of the US Department of Health and Human Services National Quality Strategy?
- better care
- health people/healthy communities
- Affordable care
What are the six priorities of high-quality care for the USDHHS National Quality Strategy?
- patient safety
- person and family-centered care
- Care coordination
- Effective prevention and treatment
- Healthy living
- affordability
What are the state and local initiatives for a better quality of care?
- Under ACA, states are partly responsible for providing state health insurance for low-income individuals and families
- ACA offers states the option of implementing a basic health program for low-income adults and legal immigrants
What are the steps to the Quality Improvement Process?
(Continuous/multistep/multilevel process)
- Identify areas for improvement based on performance and industry standards
- Analysis of current protocols and outcomes
- benchmarking
- Targeting areas for improvement
- Identifying factors that promote better outcomes
- Implementation of new protocols
- Evaluation of efficacy of new protocols
What does a peer review involve?
- professional critique of colleague’s work based on predetermined standards
- Nurses assess other nurses in a safe and non-punitive environment
- Nurses analyze complicated cases and determine standards by which they will collectively be held accountable
- Produces recommendations nursing staff will understand and accept
What are the parts of an analysis of current protocols and outcomes?
INTRAprofessional assessment:
- Peer review
- Audits
- Outcomes and management
INTERprofessional assessment
What is an audit?
- examination of records to verify accuracy and proper use
- usually examines financial or medical records
- can be for a single patient, group of similar patients, individual clinician, unit, or a whole facility
What is the difference between an intraprofessional and an interprofessional assessment?
Intra: focused on one discipline
Inter: focused on multiple disciplines
What is a retrospective audit?
performed after a patient’s discharge (recommendations made to change procedures if needed)
What is a concurrent audit?
performed while patient is undergoing care (allows for changes if needed to prevent adverse events or improve patient’s care)
What is outcomes management?
- uses patient experiences to guide improvement by providing a link between medical interventions and health outcomes and between health outcomes and cost of care
- can be used to discover areas for improvement and analyze areas of excellence
- NIH outcomes management program (PROMIS)
What are the parts of the outcomes management system?
- implement evidence-based practice systems
- guides case decision making
- Incorporates better, more efficient clinical management
- Provides information to improve services
What are the parts of the analysis of current protocols and outcomes?
Interprofessional assessment:
- assessment involving more than one discipline
- Includes peer reviews, audits, outcomes management
- utilization review
What is utilization review?
- analysis of the use of resources to identify areas of overuse, misuse, and underuse
- protects facility from unnecessary and inappropriate use of resources
- required by Medicaid for specific services
- required by the Joint Commission for facility accreditation
- May identify areas in which resources are overused (urinary catheterization for ambulatory patients)
- May identify areas in which resources are lacking (inadequate staffing)
What is benchmarking?
A method of comparing performance of a person or organization to industry standards